Vatican dicastery aims for excommunication of mafias
A new working group has been established by the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
Updated: May 11, 2021 05:58 AM GMT
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Blessed Rosario Livatino. (Photo: vaticannews)
Marking the beatification of an Italian judge murdered by the mafia, a Vatican office announced the formation of a working group on the excommunication of mafias.
The group, working under the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, plans to continue and expand work begun by the dicastery in 2018 when it launched an international network against organized crime and corruption.
The dicastery announced the working group May 8, the day of the beatification of Blessed Rosario Livatino, an anti-mafia judge martyred in 1990 by four members of the crime syndicate known as Cosa Nostra.
May 10, 2021 contributor
Pope Francis gives a homily during which he said mafiosi are not in communion with God and are excommunicated, in this June 21, 2014, file photo from Sibari, Italy. Marking the May 8 beatification of Italian anti-Mafia Judge Rosario Livatino, a Vatican dicastery announced a working group on the excommunication of mafias. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.)
Marking the beatification of an Italian judge murdered by the Mafia, a Vatican office announced the formation of a working group on the excommunication of mafias.
ROME Marking the beatification of an Italian judge murdered by the Mafia, a Vatican office announced the formation of a working group on “the excommunication of mafias.”
Vatican City, May 10, 2021 / 04:10 am (CNA).
The Vatican’s human development office has created a working group on the topic of the expulsion of criminal organizations from the Catholic Church.
The group was created in honor of Rosario Livatino, a Catholic judge killed by the mafia in Sicily in 1990, who was beatified in the Cathedral of Agrigento May 9.
The eight-member group will study the excommunication of the mafia, offering support to bishops around the world, according to a press release announcing the initiative from the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development.
Giuseppe Pignatone, president of the Vatican City State Tribunal, will be a member of the group. Pignatone is an Italian magistrate who served as deputy public prosecutor in Palermo and then public prosecutor in the cities of Reggio Calabria and Rome, where he oversaw the arrests and trials of a large number of people belonging to organized crime organizations.
Sicilian judge killed by mafia takes step to sainthood
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published : 10 May 2021 at 07:45 Pope Francis paid tribute to Livatino as a martyr for justice and faith
ROME - An Italian judge murdered by the mafia in Sicily took a step towards sainthood Sunday, almost three decades after being declared a martyr by pope John Paul II.
Rosario Livatino was beatified during a mass in the cathedral in Agrigento, the Sicilian town near where he was gunned down aged 38 on September 21, 1990.
A reliquary containing his blood-stained shirt was placed in the cathedral as he was declared Blessed , while at the Vatican, Pope Francis paid tribute to a martyr for justice and faith .